Keep Your Mouth Shut and Wear Beige (32 page)

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Authors: Kathleen Gilles Seidel

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“And the pill she took today . . . she wasn’t sure what it was. That’s why she hadn’t taken it during school, but the photographer was yelling at her so, and it was the only one she had left.” Then Rose looked at me urgently. “You know we will get her the help she needs. You know that, don’t you?”

“I do.”

There was a light rap on the door. It was the floor nurse, coming to take Annie’s vitals. The others trailed in. Guy was with them; Dad wasn’t. He had probably gone back down to be with Finney.

Rose raised her hand to put it in Guy’s. “Darcy told me what happened. Don’t try to protect me, Guy. It’s very sweet, but it doesn’t work.”

“I know that,” he said. “But I probably won’t ever stop trying.”

“Now,” Rose said firmly, “somebody needs to take care of Darcy.”

“Me?” I was surprised. “I’m fine. I don’t need—” Everyone was looking at me. “Okay, I am probably looking a little shopworn. I’ll just go wash up a bit.”

“No,” Rose ordered me to stop. “Let the other people do something for you for a change. Cami, go find her something to put on. I don’t want to leave Annie, so, Mike, take her into the bathroom and help her.”

Cami jumped up, relieved to have something to do. Mike scooped up a towel and washcloth from the shelves near the door. He took my hand and led me across the hall and into the bathroom of an empty room. “Lord, you are a mess.” But his voice was soft, even a little affectionate. He unzipped the dress and eased it off my shoulders, and it fell to the floor. I wasn’t wearing a slip, just my bra and panties. I had some scratches on my arm; two were a little bloody. I hadn’t noticed them before. I must have gotten them when Finney was thrashing. Mike ran the water for a moment, dampening the washcloth.

“Cold water works better on blood,” I said.

“But warm has to feel better.”

It did. He wiped my arms with long, firm strokes. Then he did my shoulders and neck. It was nice, the warm washcloth massaging my body. He rinsed and wrung out the cloth, then knelt down. The washcloth was warm against my legs. It wasn’t sexual; it was kind. So very kind. Mike wrapped my body in the towel and then worked on my face, having to rinse and rerinse the washcloth because there was so much makeup. I had my face tilted back as if I were a child.

“You don’t usually have this much stuff on your face,” he said . . . and for once it didn’t sound like a criticism.

“It was for those pictures of Claudia’s.”

“Ah . . . yes.”

There was a light knock on the door. It was Cami. She handed Mike a plastic-handled shopping bag. “I found these in Dad’s car. They’re Annie’s, but the waist is elastic. They should fit.”

Mike handed me a top. It was a sleeveless shell made of unbleached cotton. I pulled it over my head. It was a little tight around the armpits, but not too bad. The skirt was also unbleached; it was long and loosely woven, falling around my calves with a soft
weight. I supposed Annie would wear the clothes with a million other things, scarves and shirts and necklaces, but this was enough for me. The shoes were thick-soled black flip-flops. One strap had
BERKELEY
printed on it; the other one,
CARROLL
. That was her school in Park Slope.

I gathered up the wad of lavender that had been my dress and thanked Mike.

“No problem,” he said. His back was to me. He was rinsing out the washcloth one more time.

This was wrong. I hadn’t said enough.

I tried again. “I really do appreciate it. I don’t think I realized how dirty I felt and how much better I would feel clean. I wouldn’t have done such a good job if I had been here by myself, but I wouldn’t have been comfortable with anyone but you.”

There. That wasn’t hard.

“You never seemed to want anything like that before.” Mike was facing me, but he wasn’t looking at me.

“You heard Rose. Admitting that I need something isn’t my strong suit.”

“You know, Darcy, I’ve been thinking a lot.” He was looking at me. “I’m not sure I left for the reasons that I said I did, because of the mess in the house and you being late and all those things you now call ADD behaviors. I’ve racked my brain trying to understand why I couldn’t have been more accepting, more forgiving, when there was so much at stake. But standing here, washing you, made me realize that I wanted you to need me. I knew that I was a good provider, but that never seemed to matter to you. It was always so important to you to know that you could support yourself.”

I sighed. “I have trouble trusting people, even you.”

“Well, as things worked out, you were right not to trust me.”

“No, Mike, no. Let’s not beat ourselves up about what happened.”

“It’s been hard not to,” he said, “because I know I started us down this path. But, Darcy, one thing—I do love living alone. That’s why I was so angry when you moved. I had the best of both worlds when you were still in the old house. I was living by myself, but I could go home and eat a great dinner whenever I wanted. I could have my tools and workbench, but I was still living alone. That wasn’t fair to you.”

“I appreciate your saying this. I really do.”

“And apparently I needed to be holed up in a hospital bathroom before I could say it.” And he smiled, that clear, sweet, boyish smile.

I wasn’t in love with him, but I will always always always love that smile.

“We probably need to get back out there and see what’s going on,” I said, and he agreed.

Claudia was in the hall. She was alone, hovering outside Annie’s room. She was probably afraid to go in. In her shoes, I would have been too.

“Oh, I was wondering where you were.” She was relieved to see us. “Darcy, what you did was remarkable. I know that it must seem that I’m responsible for—” Then she caught sight of what I had in my hand. “That isn’t your dress, is it?”

I looked down at the wad of fabric in my hand. “I’m so sorry. I’m sure it’s ruined, but here . . . maybe—” I tried to hand it to her.

“And Annie’s dress?” She couldn’t help herself, she just couldn’t help herself, even though she had to know that caring about this was wrong. “Do you know what happened to it?”

I shook my head. “The ER would have taken it off. It’ll be with her personal effects.”

“Dresses?” Mike was puzzled for a minute. “Oh, right, the rehearsal dinner. We need to figure out what to do about that. I can’t imagine that anyone is going to feel like a big dressy event.”

Oh, Lord. I hadn’t been thinking. Here it was, late in the afternoon on Thursday. We had the rehearsal dinner tomorrow, and the wedding . . . two hundred and fifty people in an English cottage garden. . . .

I’d seen this before—families in the ICU struggling to figure out what to do about the wedding, the bar mitzvah, the graduation only a day away. Now it was our turn.

“You’re not thinking of
canceling
the dinner, are you?” Claudia was shocked at the thought.

“No,” Mike said. “People still need to eat, but in light of everything that’s happened, maybe we should downsize it, make it more casual. Not have people get so dressed up.”

“Not have people get dressed up?”

“Remember, the restaurant warned us that Friday nights in the summer, people wouldn’t be . . .” He stopped. He saw Claudia’s face. He saw how she was frantically trying to hold on to her plans. Despite all that had happened, that was what still mattered to her.

He spoke firmly. “We want to do something that’s appropriate for the moment. This is a family occasion, so let’s think about what’s right for the families involved.”

Not the dresses, the pictures, the fashion-magazine article, not Claudia’s brand, but the families.

“Of course,” she said. “Of course. I’ll call the restaurant and see what ideas they have.”

That was the right thing to say, exactly the right thing, but she had waited too long to say it.

She moved down toward the window where cell-phone reception was better. Mike watched her for a moment, then turned back to me. “I know that the wedding is the bride’s family’s deal, but this rehearsal dinner is ours. And it got completely out of hand. This whole thing with the dresses and coverage in a magazine, that’s not us. I guess I was unconsciously assuming that you would
keep us straight. Since you never tried to stop Claudia, I let myself think that it was okay.”

“I couldn’t get between the two of you.”

“I see that now.”

When Mike and I had been married, I’d been the one to get us to church on Sunday, to arrange for us to visit his mother, to plan the family vacations and to tell the boys that no, they couldn’t take friends along on the trip and each would have to play with his brother, who, yes, might be a creep and a jerk, but he was still his brother.

Now Mike realized that he would have to shoulder his share of the job. With the boys nearly grown, it wouldn’t be hard—not like hauling an eleven-year-old and a seven-year-old to Sunday school—but we couldn’t lose sight of the fact that the job still needed doing.

“Before I got here, was anyone talking about the wedding?”

Mike shook his head. “But we had no idea what had actually happened to Finney. How long do you think he’s going to be hospitalized?”

“A couple of days. They’ill pump him full of antibiotics. But even if he is discharged by Saturday, he’s going to be timid and clingy. I doubt that he’ll want to have anything to do with a big crowd.”

“Let’s see what Jeremy has to say. Then we can support him.” Mike opened the door to Annie’s room and motioned. Both our boys came out. We explained how we were going to change the nature of the rehearsal dinner. Then Mike asked Jeremy about Saturday. “How’s Cami going to feel if Finney isn’t there?”

The idea made him pause. “Not good. She’ll want him there.”

“What do
you
want to happen?” I asked.

“I want Cami to have what she wants. I want Cami to have the wedding of her dreams.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. Apparently Mike didn’t either. After a moment, it was, to my surprise, Zack who spoke. “You can knock my head off for what I’m about to say, but this dream-wedding business . . . I know that everything looks great back at the house, but everyone’s on edge and miserable. If this is a dream wedding, I don’t want to see a nightmare.”

Zack was right. Even if there had been no unidentified round pink pill or cherry-flavored “all natural” water, this wasn’t the wedding of Cami’s dreams.

So the four of us talked, and, like any family, we repeated ourselves a lot. We said things that didn’t make any sense. We got off track and started remembering the Polar Bear regatta Jeremy’s first year on the Selwyn crew, but sooner or later we understood one another and outlined what we thought should happen.

I knew one thing from watching ICU families labor with such decisions. When you are bewildered, caught between tragedy and trivia, the best thing to do is to call your clergy—your priest, pastor, minister, or rabbi—and have him or her tell you what to do. The good ones know when families need someone else to make decisions for them.

But the Zander-Browns had never joined a religious institution. They did not have a relationship with a member of the clergy.

They only had us, and yes, Mike and I were divorced, yes, we had put asunder what God had joined, but the four of us were still a family.

Fourteen
 

 

 

 
M
 
ike and the boys followed me back into the room. Annie was awake and agitated; Rose was on the far side of the bed, stroking Annie’s hair, trying to soothe her.

“This is all my fault,” Annie wailed. “If I hadn’t taken that pill, none of this would have happened to Finney.”

“It was a whole chain; a lot of things went wrong.” I touched Cami’s shoulder, moving her aside so that Annie could see me. “You still aren’t yourself, but the drug will wear off. You’ll feel better soon.”

“I don’t care about that. What about Finney? And Cami’s wedding? He’ll be out of the hospital by Saturday, won’t he?” She was begging me to reassure her.

The room was crowded—four Zander-Browns, the four Van Aikens—but everyone was suddenly listening for my response. “It’s possible,” I said, “but it isn’t likely. The risk of infection is so great.”

“Mom, what are we going to
do
?” Cami sank down into one
of the visitor chairs. “How can I get married without Finney there?”

“Sweetheart, I told you”—Guy had the palms of his hands pressed together and was moving them up and down in a slight chopping motion—“we’re going to do everything we can to get him there even if it’s only for a few hours.”

I glanced at Rose. She saw me looking at her. She raised her eyebrows and tilted her head a bit as if she were asking me to do something. Then she gave her head a slight shake.

“That’s not a good idea,” I said flatly. “There’s a fair amount involved—unhooking and rehooking his IVs and such. It’s one thing to do that for a grandparent who would get something out of being at the ceremony, but Finney’s a little boy who likes routine. He’s going to be scared and confused. Honestly, Cami, I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but a plan to take him out of the hospital for a few hours just pays lip service to the idea of him being there. If you’re getting married on Saturday, you should accept that he won’t be there.”

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